Overhead

Inspired by classic prog giants like Pink Floyd, Genesis and King Crimson, Finnish band Overhead formed in the late nineties to record, and eventually release their first full version album "Zumanthum". Their music is refined and elegant with well-built melodies, clear and powerful vocals quiet and contrasted parts, sophisticated arrangements and great instrumental parts. After having published a first album and guested on the Kalevala project, these young Finnish musicians join the Musea label at the occasion of the release of their second opus. "Metaepitome" (2005) is composed by six long and complex pieces, two of them being suites about 15 and 20 minutes long. The music still includes a few influences from ink Floyd, Rush, Marillion, Dream Theater or King Crimson…

MusicWeb
Originally issued in May 1997 and one of the clear successes of EMI's Debut series, this disc was a major contributory factor to Adès' success. It is still difficult to believe that Adès was born as recently as 1971, such is the sureness of the compositional hand at work in these pieces. Since then awards and commissions have followed each other in bullet-like succession (he was the youngest ever recipient of the Grawemeyer Prize for his orchestral work Asyla, Op. 17, for example). He has acted as the Hallé's Composer-in-Residence (which in fact resulted in Asyla, as well as The Origin of the Harp) and he has produced an opera, Powder her Face, of international significance. In addition, he has let his talents as pianist and conductor develop (his solo piano disc on CDC5 57051-2 is an impressive achievement). Being in possession of such enviable pianistic gifts makes Adès the ideal interpreter of his own piano music. He makes the complexities of Traced Overhead (1996) seem easy (other pianists performances reveal this clearly not to be the case). Darknesse Visible, a 'recomposing' of Dowland's In darknesse let me dwell, likewise exhibits an astonishing variety of textures. In short, there is plenty to provoke thought here, and much to make one wonder in which this direction this composer will travel in the future.

—Colin Clarke

Lang Lang - Live in Vienna [BluRay Untouched]
MPEG-4 AVC, 1080i, 1.78:1 | DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 & 2.0 @ 24Bit/48kHz | Full Artwork
Label/Cat#: Sony Classical # 88697719029 | Country/Year: Europe 2010 | Size: 52,40 GB
Genre: Classical | Style: Piano, HiDef | 5% Recovery Info

…The piano sounds brilliant and thrilling, with impeccable nuance and detail, so that everything from the vicious percussive moments of the Prokofiev to the lovely, water color like impressionism of Iberia comes through with incredible clarity and precision. What's also quite remarkable about these tracks is their often astonishing dynamic range. Lang Lang coaxes everything from the quietest whisper to the loudest explosion out of his Steinway, and both DTS tracks recreate that sonic variety wonderfully well. Lang Lang is one of the vanguard artists of his generation, and this sterling concert shows him off brilliantly. With a near perfect video presentation and a perfect audio one, this certainly augurs well for Lang Lang's new partnership with Sony. Highly recommended.